The market's visibility to early quality issues has never been greater and will continue to accelerate. The extensive awareness creates opportunities for the prepared enterprise, and substantial risks for those slow to react.

By DE Editors

August 21, 2019

Dear DE Reader,

Engineering technology is advancing at a velocity that leaves many companies with a stunned “deer in the headlights” feeling. How do you improve productivity without rewriting workflows, breaking IT budgets or alienating employees set in their ways? One time-tested way is to improve the ability to collaborate. When the data of engineering is safe and shared, it becomes easier to take other steps. Which is why we want to introduce you to our Editor’s Pick of the Week, Vertex.

Vertex is a new software platform from Vertex Software for sharing 3D product data throughout the company and beyond, as necessary. The company was founded in 2017 by a team with roots in engineering visualization and success in building data collaboration tools for the financial industry. Now the team returns to its roots with experience, on a mission to accelerate manufacturing innovation with a premier visualization platform.

Vertex sees plenty of ways to improve industrial and engineering collaboration. Engineers sometimes wait for hours for massive models to load. Those in other departments or the extended supply chain lack access to designs when they need them the most, so designers end up taking time away from product development to prepare models. Some try to tack new features onto existing product data management solutions, which requires extra training time.

Vertex says its 100% cloud-based solution solves these problems and more. Its four pillars of collaboration are to simplify data sharing in a secure environment; connect cross-functional teams; increase the quality of early decisions; and improve the ability to respond to shifting requirements.

The platform starts with its 3D viewer, which Vertex says is able to instantly load any size model without waiting for rendering or latency. Users can toggle BOM components for fast filter and search, limiting views and assemblies. Users can take “Snapshots” of the filtered view and assembly and easily share with any collaborator.

Data security experts says the best approaches to security are built in, not added on. Vertex uses its years of experience in fintech to make its platform secure from the inside out. Security starts with its cloud-based platform, and extends to how it supports a wide range of 3D data formats including JT and STEP.

There is more to share than we can fit into an email. Check this week’s Product Brief for how Vertex offers a lightweight app for fast model viewing, how the platform loads 100,000 BOM lines in a couple of seconds, and how simple the product is to use.

Thanks for reading; we’ll be back next week with another Editor’s Pick of the Week.